NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Picture walking along a ridge. With each step, the pathway gets more narrow and the slopes on either side of you steeper and more perilous.

Welcome to the Rangers' offseason mission.

Forget the old metaphors of windows opening and closing. It is this path that Jon Daniels and his restructured staff must traverse. It is the path to continued success. The slopes on either side represent the risks of a misstep: on one side a tumble from the top due to an aging, unimproved team; on the other, the long climb back to the top from having a barren minor league system.

Daniels talked on the eve of the winter meetings about "threading a needle" toward maintaining success. On Monday, after the first day of talks and texts with other clubs, he again explained what appears to be a critical moment in time for the Rangers. This winter, they are appear to be at more of a tipping point than in recent seasons.

They've averaged 89 wins per year since 2010 and played past game 162 in six of seven seasons, but all of that is the past. What matters is the future. Short and long-term.

"We expect to contend and win," Daniels said. "But not at the expense of the franchise. When you go all in, you have just one directive. When you rebuild, same thing. What we believe we can do is put a mix of both those. We can put a good product on the field and keep the integrity of the system intact. We have a challenge ahead of us, and we're going to work through it."

They have limited financial flexibility -- perhaps to save money to propose contract extensions to Yu Darvish and Jonathan Lucroy once they assemble their 2017 team -- and a thinned minor league system from two years of pennant-chasing trades.

This is why the Rangers are all over the place at these winter meetings. Sometimes, before you can thread the needle, you have to paint some broad strokes. They are considering going after not one, but two center fielders so they can move one to a corner outfield spot and use Shin-Soo Choo as the primary DH.

According to major league sources, they are talking also about players such as the Chicago Cubs' Jorge Soler, who is young, controllable and cheap and might be had for a relief pitcher. Soler would be an option if they can't re-sign Carlos Gomez and trade for a speedy center fielder who allows them to increase their team speed. They've talked about Kansas City's Lorenzo Cain, who has only one more year before free agency, and could revisit him. They were rebuffed when they asked Atlanta about young center fielder Ender Inciarte.

They are also considering just about everything on the starting pitching front, save for the likes of a Chris Sale, who comes with a club-friendly, but still significant, contract, multiple years of control and would cost them Rougned Odor or Nomar Mazara -- or perhaps both -- and more.

They would love a young and controllable starting pitcher with experience but would also consider simply adding to their depth by trading for a prospect pitcher.

They are "unlikely," Daniels said, to flirt with any big-ticket free agents. You can define the cost of "big-ticket" in many ways, but Carlos Beltran, whom the Rangers liked, and Rich Hill, the top free-agent pitcher, each got a deal with an annual value of $16 million. The Rangers weren't serious players on either. That might represent an informal cost threshold the Rangers aren't willing to bust. So maybe put away any talk of Edwin Encarnacion or Mark Trumbo or perhaps even Ian Desmond, unless there are serious changes to their market.

These are not the moves of a team focused solely on winning the World Series in 2017, cost be damned.

"We're looking to get better for 2017," Daniels said, "and the years coming up after that."

It will take creative ingenuity to walk that path.

"The challenge we have is maintaining success, threading that needle," Daniels said. "I believe we can do it. I know we can do it. But we're going to have some tough calls to make."

And one wrong step might lead to a dangerous fall from which it might take years to recover.